Every pandemic in history has had its share of miracle potions and magic cures, most of which, sadly, have been anything but. Nonetheless, there is a real sense of the miraculous about the contraption sitting before me in a factory workshop on the outskirts of Worcester. It is the prototype of a mass- production hospital … Read more
Normally, they would have been alive with children clutching fresh daffodils and a box of chocs for a beloved mother or grandmother. Yesterday, however, churches up and down the land stood empty on what should have been one of the busier days of the year – Mothering Sunday – as ministers went through the devotional … Read more
Historians still quibble over whether Napoleon Bonaparte actually said it or not. Yet it has stuck. And it was certainly not meant as a compliment. ‘England,’ scoffed the former French Emperor in his twilight years, ‘is a nation of shopkeepers.’ To which, right now, one can only respond: ‘Amen to that.’ For as we confront … Read more
Soaked, woke and angry though they might have been, the younger residents of Bristol were in carnival mood as the Greta Thunberg phenomenon descended yesterday. Britain’s greenest city (Bristol has just announced both an ‘ecological emergency’ and a ban on diesel cars) was both thrilled and honoured to welcome the pint-sized Pied Piper of eco-activism … Read more